The Blinding Knife
Page 72

Teia knew that the relaxed, loose composure of a warrior meant speed. Trainer Fisk was shorter and thicker than Commander Ironfist, but literally muscle-bound. His heavy muscles actually slowed his motion—compared with Ironfist. Compared to Teia, of course, the trainer was fast as a loosed crossbow bolt.
“Your training is the best in the Seven Satrapies,” Commander Ironfist began. No preliminaries, it wasn’t his way. “Your training is necessary and good and effective. But your training—even here, even among the best—can hamstring you. When we practice punches, we pull them short, because if we don’t, we’d lose you all to injuries. But when you pull punches ten thousand times, it’s hard not to on the ten thousand and first punch: the punch that you throw at a real attacker.
“Our necessary safeguards can make you bad fighters. Blackguards can’t be bad fighters. Your class will be called on to fight and perhaps to die, perhaps soon, and if you don’t know how to kill your opponents first, a lot of you will die. Your class may have fourteen pass. May. Not will. So your class’s training is going to be different. Accelerated. Harder. We will not allow you to be second-rate. There is no substitute for experience, so experience you will get. This experience will cost some of you injuries that will put you out of contention for those fourteen slots. We’ve never done this before because it’s dangerous and it isn’t fair. But we’re out of time, so we’re doing what we have to. For some of you, the tests will be easy. For some they will be boring. For others, they will be literal fights to the death. These experiences will not be safe, will not be controlled. They may be too hard. You may be crippled or die. If you can’t accept this, you may leave. Now.”
No one left.
“Failure on these tests will not automatically bar you from advancement. But it will matter. You fail, you drop three spots. Blackguards deal with what we get, not what we want. Here are the rules: You and your partner will be taken to a point in Big Jasper in one of the worst neighborhoods. You’ll be given a handful of coins publicly, and then you must get those coins to the Great Fountain. You are forbidden to bring weapons or draft. To pass, you must bring back six of the eight danars you’re given. However many you bring back, you and your partner get to keep. If you don’t make it in three hours, we’ll come looking for you. But don’t expect any help. You’re alone out there.”
They drew straws for the order and an odd thing happened. The first team to draw drew number one, the second team number two, the third team number three. Trainer Fisk scowled and mixed the straws again. But the fourth drawers drew number four, the fifth number five. He mixed again, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. He frowned, but said nothing, and they dismissed it as a weird coincidence.
Adrasteia and Kip got a straw that put them in the last third. Not an auspicious beginning. Then they walked across town, led by Trainer Fisk and several of the older Blackguard trainees. Commander Ironfist didn’t accompany them. He had duties elsewhere.
The first pair to go was the mountain Parian girl, Gracia. She was lean as a willow and taller than most of the boys. Her partner was another Parian, still tall and lean, but not so dark as Gracia, and a lot uglier, Goss. He was one of the best fighters, but he had a habit of picking—scabs, nose, earwax—and eating it. He was within a hair’s breadth of earning the obvious nickname.
A sizable crowd had gathered to see what these Blackguards were doing in a bad neighborhood, and not all of the faces were friendly. Most were wary, but curious.
Trainer Fisk bade Gracia and Goss come forward, publicly handed them the eight danars, counting out the coins, then bound a red handkerchief around each one’s forehead. “Bring these safely to the Great Fountain. No one in the Blackguard and no one in the Chromeria is going to help you. If you lose these coins, it’s on your own head. You’re not allowed to use weapons. You’re not allowed to draft.”
Murmurs went through the crowd watching them. It wasn’t a fortune, but for an unskilled laborer it was as much as they could make in two weeks. And these children had it. And the watchers knew where the children were taking it, so they could guess what routes they’d take. And Trainer Fisk had just announced that the children wouldn’t be protected from on high.
Gracia and Goss were smart, though. Smarter than Teia would have credited. They ran.
If they went by a direct route, they would travel faster than the news could. In fact, depending on how long Fisk made the teams wait in between attempts, the same strategy might work for the first few teams. Anyone hoping to ambush the Blackguards coming through would have to hear the news and then have to take the time to gather their gang to do so.
After five minutes, Trainer Fisk announced it all again, bound the red handkerchiefs around the brows of the second team, and handed them their money. They ran, too.
The crowd of the curious continued to grow, but Kip was watching the edges of the crowd to see who was leaving, and Teia followed his gaze. She saw several young men go different ways, each looking furtively back toward the circle, as if afraid that their payday would leave.
The scrubs were talking among themselves, trying to figure out strategies. If Teia was doing the arithmetic right, she and Kip had almost two hours before it would be their turn. When she thought about how many thugs could be gathered in that time, her mouth went dry. They would come for money like sharks came for blood.
She was still thinking about it when she noticed that Kip had walked away.
“Where are you going?” Teia asked.
“Where all of you should be going,” Kip said.
“What?” she asked.
Every scrub’s eyes were on Kip, and no few of the crowd’s, now that he had been called out. “Scouting,” Kip said.
The scrubs looked at Trainer Fisk. He shrugged. “No rules but the rules you were given,” he said, bored.
Kip was brilliant. He’d seen it in a second: don’t obey what the rules mean, obey what the rules say. That was the test as much as getting the coins through safely.
Within another ten seconds, all the scrubs scattered, except those who were up next. Ferkudi and Daelos went from looking excited to be going so early to looking stricken, keenly aware of their sudden relative ignorance.
Teia and Kip made a slow circuit of the nearby streets. They didn’t speak.
After a while, they heard the sounds of a fight one block over. Teia ran toward the fight. Kip followed close after, though he was slower than she was.
“We don’t even have the money yet, you morons!” a wide girl whose name Teia didn’t know was shouting at some bloody-nosed tough on the ground in front of her. “Do you see the red kerchief?”
The girl’s partner, Rud, a squat coastal Parian who wore the ghotra, didn’t look angry or triumphant. He looked scared. He was bleeding from a deep gash in his shoulder.
“I should kill you!” the scrub girl shouted.
The tough scrambled back on all fours, then turned and ran.
Teia said, “We need to get you back to Trainer Fisk, Rud. Right away.”
He nodded, and together the four of them walked briskly the four blocks back to the square. Rud leaned on his partner and then on Kip, too, as his blood loss made him nearly faint. Teia walked ahead of them, on the lookout for threats.
On catching sight of them, Trainer Fisk ran to meet them. The Blackguard scrubs were only steps behind him. They took Rud, made him lie down, and instantly began tending to the cut.